KABOOM.... the dinosaurs weren't able to escape the dual-pocalypse which destroyed them

The new evidence supports a third theory that both events were to blame.

Lead scientist Dr Sierra Petersen, from the University of Michigan, US, said: "We find that the end-Cretaceous mass extinction was caused by a combination of the volcanism and meteorite impact, delivering a theoretical 'one-two punch'."

The scientists analysed the composition of fossil shells to reconstruct ocean temperatures in Antarctica around the time of the dinosaurs' extinction.

They found two abrupt warming spikes - the first coinciding with eruptions from the Deccan Traps volcanic region in India and the second with the Mexican meteor impact.

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Antarctic ocean temperatures jumped by about 7.8C during the eruption event, probably because of enormous amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere, said the researchers writing in the journal Nature Communications.

The second warming spike was smaller and occurred roughly 150,000 years later, around the time the meteor struck.

"This new temperature record provides a direct link between the volcanism and impact events and the extinction pulses - that link being climate change," said Dr Petersen.

A "press-pulse" mechanism was likely to have killed off the dinosaurs, the research suggests.

First came the "press" of gradual climate change due to the Deccan Traps eruptions. This was followed by the instantaneous "pulse" of an object several miles wide slamming into the Earth.

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